Bernard Lewis, Abe Foxman, Genocide, and ‘Genocide’ |
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by Daniel Koffler, November 12, 2007 |
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I want to underscore Josh's
comments about Bernard Lewis' sinister complacency on the question of the
Armenian genocide. Josh helpfully mentions the heroic campaign of Raphael
Lemkin, the inventor of the term ‘genocide', to install the concept into
international law. Josh is quite right that that the concept ‘genocide' picks
out does not merely encompass its archetypal instance, the Holocaust, but any
acts of a relevantly similar nature that are to be absolutely forbidden among
civilized nations.
If you follow the Wikipedia article on Lemkin, you'll see that his struggle to have an international law banning genocide began in earnest in 1933, well before the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish people had begun. In fact, the connection between Lemkin's conceptual invention and the crime Ottoman Turkey perpetrated against its Armenian population is not merely theoretical; the Armenian genocide and its aftermath were Lemkin's direct inspiration. As Samantha Power recounts in her excellent book A Problem from Hell, in March 1921, in a pleasant neighborhood of Berlin, Soghomon Tehlirian, a young Armenian man whose family had been slaughtered by the Turks and who had been conscripted into a revanchist band of assassins, gunned down Mehmed Talaat, the former Ottoman Minister of the Interior who oversaw the murder of one million Armenians and acted as the Turkish government's principal obfuscator on the international stage.
Lemkin, a linguistics student at the University of Lvov, read about Talaat's assassination and the events surrounding it in a newspaper. I'll let Power take over:
Lemkin was intrigued and brought the case to the attention of one of his professors. Lemkin asked why the Armenians did not have Talaat arrested for the massacre. The professor said there was no law under which he could be arrested. "Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens," he said. "He kills them and this is his business. If you interfere, you are trespassing."
"It is a crime for Tehlirian to kill a man, but it is not a crime for his oppressor to kill more than a million men?" Lemkin asked. "This is most inconsistent."
Lemkin was appalled that the banner of "state sovereignty" could shield men who tried to wipe out an entire minority. "Sovereignty," Lemkin argued to the professor, "implies conducting an independent foreign and internal policy...Sovereignty cannot be conceived as the right to kill millions of innocent people...."Lemkin was torn about how to judge Tehlirian's act. On the one hand, Lemkin credited the Armenian with upholding the "moral order of mankind" and drawing the world's attention to the Turkish slaughter. Tehlirian's case had quickly turned into an informal trial of the deceased Talaat for his crimes against the Armenians; the witnesses and written evidence introduced in Tehlirian's defense brought the Ottoman horrors to their fullest light to date. The New York Times wrote that the documents introduced in the trial "established once and for all the fact that the purpose of the Turkish authorities was not deportation but annihiliation" [attn: Bernard Lewis - DK]. But Lemkin was uncomfortable that Tehlirian...had acted as the "self-appointed legal officer for the conscience of mankind." Passion, he knew, would often make a travesty of justice. Impunity for mass murderers like Talaat had to end; retribution had to be legalized.
The ironies here are numerous, and one I'll mention just in passing is that while the New York Times was not under any illusions about the nature of the Turkish atrocities as far back as 1921, the establishment press of 2007, following conventions of supposed objectivity that in general do more to throttle truth than disseminate it, can't quite seem to figure out what the fact of the matter is regarding the Armenian genocide.
The bottom line, pace Bernard Lewis, is that the crime of genocide was originally conceived to describe what Turkey did to the Armenians. Just as it is a priori that a meter stick is one meter long, so it is a priori that the Turkish mass-murder of Armenians was genocide, and a denial of this fact is not merely an expression of ignorance, and not even, strictly speaking, false. To say "there was no Armenian genocide" amounts to what the logical positivists called vocus flatus, a syntactical and seemingly articulate string of symbols that nevertheless is literally meaningless, due, in this case, to its containing an analytic inconsistency. "There was no Armenian genocide" is not a false sentence because it is not even a sentence. It's like trying (and failing) to refer to "the married bachelor."
One further irony that deserves notice is the role of Jews in alerting the world to what the Turks had done to the Armenians long before the Jews themselves were victims of a genocide, and how the profiles of Lemkin and others compare with cravenness of Abe Foxman and the ADL. Lemkin was not the first nor the most prominent Jew to assume the plight of the Armenians as his own. Henry Morgenthau, an emigrant from Germany to the US, was ambassador to Ottoman Turkey during the First World War, who began to plead with his superiors to come to the aid of the Armenians as early as February 1915. "There seems to be," Morgenthau wrote to Washington, " a systematic plan to crush the Armenian race." Power again:
Local witnesses urged [Morgenthau] to invoke the moral power of the United States. Otherwise, he was told, "the whole Armenian nation would disappear." The ambassador did what he could, continuing to send blistering cables back to Washington and raising the matter at virtually every meeting he held with Talaat. He found his exchanges with the interior minister infuriating. Once, when the ambassador introduced eyewitness reports of slaughter, Talaat snapped back: "Why are you so interested in the Armenians anyway? You are a Jew, these people are Christians...What have you to complain of? Why can't you let us do with these Christians as we please?" Morgenthau replied, "You don't seem to realize that I am not here as a Jew but as the American Ambassador...I do not appeal to you in the name of any race or religion but merely as a human being."
Morgenthau's efforts cast the issue rather starkly, I think. If the Anti-Defamation League cannot call genocide ‘genocide', for fear that to do so is impolitic, then the Anti-Defamation League does not need to exist. At the very least, Abraham Foxman and whichever other ADL officers are responsible for the organization's behavior on this matter should resign, not just from the ADL, but from public life entirely; whatever moral stature the ADL retains depends upon them doing so.
Lastly, we should not forget that Morgenthau's response to the Turkish Eichmann --- for once the comparison is apt --- was an American, not a Jewish response. Morgenthau was begged to "invoke the moral power of the United States"; if the government of the United States cannot be bothered to state the truth simply and forthrightly, then it has no such moral power.
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Daniel Koffler is a Clarendon Scholar and graduate student in philosophy at the University of Oxford. More... |
Andy Hume
Tremendous. Well said.
Anonymous
Daniel, you know Tehlirian was acquitted, even though the crime was committed knowingly and in cold blood. What a fascinating case it must have been and is for a murderer to be acquitted, because his family was killed as part of the extermination of his people. Most Turks that I have encountered on the "Internets" believe this case to be a travesty of justice, and further proof that the "Christian" West hates Turks and loves Armenians, and therefore, any scholarship that comes form the West is tainted and unreliable.
Great article Daniel. By the way, there is a decent chance you will soon see posts here from Azeris who will try to equate the Tehlirian story with the Ramil Safarov story. Just for your info, Ramil Safarov killed an Armenian soldier at an UN Partnership for Peace educational program that involved learning English. Ramil snuck into the Armenian soldier's room while he was sleeping and hacked his head off with an ax. This happened a couple of years ago. Ramil became a national hero in Azerbaijan over night when he was convicted by a Hungarian court for murder (the PFP program was in Hungary). His defense was that some of his relatives (none were immediate relatives) were killed by Armenian soldiers during the Karabagh war. I guess his Azeri lawyers must have thought that if it was a good enough defense for Tehlirian, it might work for Safarov too.
Anonymous
Ramil Safarov was a refugee himself. His cousins and other close relatives were slaughtered by Armenian forces in his native village before his father and mother were able to save him and run for their own lives. This boy wittnessed murder and lost his home at age 7 or 8.
Ramil was never a national Azeri hero, as opposed to the Armenian national heroes, such as international terrorist Monte Melkonian, Nazzi colloborator - General Dro and a terrorist and a former president of most influential Armenian community of America (ANCA) - Mourad Topalian.
Ramil's actions were commended by a few members of some insignificant ultra-nationalist group that does not enjoy popularity among most of Azerbijani community. Most Azeris condemned Safarov's actions and condemned the fact that Ministry of Defence was able to overlook this person's mental disturbness.
I, personally, condemn Ramil's actions but for the sake of fairness it needs to be noted that what appears in Western world to be OK for Armenians is not considered to be OK for Azeris (or Turks). Human lives of Azeris and Turks will never be of the same importance (if any importance at all) to the Western world as lives of their own "Christian" Armenians and such. No one will ever care about innocent Turks and Azeris, ruthlessly slaughtered by Armenians and Russians during the events of 1905-1920. No one will ever care what happened to Azeris only 15 years ago in Kelbajar, Lachin, Masis, Goradiz, Spital, Leninakan. No one wants to discuss current illigal occupation of 20% of Azerbaijani territory, 1 million Azeri refugees and ethnic cleansing carried out by Armenians all on the territory of modern Azerbaijan. And even Khojaly Genocide never seems to be "a topic of discussion".
It's understandable. Why would anyone care for justice for Turks? Their lives are not as important, they are not human beings and don't deserve the same human rights. Justice and human rights should serve only to Armenians. Everything was created in this world only for them. And now even "Genocide" term appears to be pure ancient Armenian invention. Bravo! It is truly pathetic and extremely insulting to victims of Jewish Holocaust. That said, it is really insulting and disrespectful to half of my relatives and my Jewish roots from one side of my family. Yes, I am half Jew and half Azeri and that is very common from where I come from.
This is all sad, but true. As they say: "Life is not fair" but, fortunately, there is also a saying that: "What goes around, comes around".
Richard
Excellent post Daniel. Lemkin said in an interview on CBS in 1948, that the case of the Armenians was, inter alia, what influenced him to define the crime of genocide and lobby for the Genocide Convention. That interview is reproduced in Andrew Goldberg's documentary "The Armenian Genocide" http://www.twocatstv.com/armenian-genocide/.
Jews were instrumental from the beginning in seeking justice for the Armenians. In addition to Lemkin and Morgenthau, the Austrian-Jewish author Franz Werfel wrote the 40 Days at Musa Dagh http://www.amazon.com/Forty-Days-Musa-Dagh/dp/0881846686.
It is fascinating to follow the various anonymous comments in their conflation of events and times. There seems to be a continuum of denial that parallels the continuum of genocide.
Anonymous
Indeed, there seems to be lots of denialist strategy coming from Armenian nationalists. And this is also a great book by an independent Western witness (British officer):
Source: "Adventures in the Near East, 1918-1922" by A. Rawlinson, Jonathan Cape, 30 Bedford Square, London, 1934 (First published 1923), 287 pages.
(Memoirs of a British officer who witnessed the Armenian genocide of 2.5 million Muslim people)
p. 184 (second paragraph)
"I had received further very definite information of horrors that had been committed by the Armenian soldiery in Kars Plain, and as I had been able to judge of their want of discipline by their treatment of my own detached parties, I had wired to Tiflis from Zivin that 'in the interests of humanity the Armenians should not be left in independent command of the Moslem population, as, their troops being without discipline and not under effective control, atrocities were constantly being committed, for which we should with justice eventually be held to be morally responsible'."
p. 177 (third paragraph)
"Armenian troops, who, having pillaged and destroyed all the
Moslem villages in the plain...."
"Caravans of refugees were in the meanwhile constantly arriving from the plain, from which the whole Moslem population was fleeing with as much of their personal property as they could transport, seeking to obtain security and protection..."
p. 178 (first paragraph)
"In those Moslem villages in the plain below which had been searched for arms by the Armenians everything had been taken under the cloak of such search, and not only had many Moslems been killed, but horrible tortures had been inflicted in the endeavour to obtain information as to where valuables had been hidden, of which the Armenians were aware of the existence, although they had been unable to find them."
p. 179 (first paragraph)
"Shortly afterwards the head of the miserable column appeared. There were in all about 200 persons, mostly old men and women and children, with a few ox-carts, ponies, and donkeys, carrying all their worldly possessions, except a few sheep that they were driving before them. Their leader interviewed Bekir Bey, and was told to keep farther on into the hills, where he would be able to cross the frontier into Turkey unmolested by his enemies."
p. 181 (first paragraph)
"the Armenians from the plain were attacking the Kurdish line with artillery, with probably a large force in support."
p. 175 (first paragraph)
"The arrival of this British brigade was followed by the announcement that Kars Province had been allotted by the Supreme Council of the
Allies to the Armenians, and that announcement having been made, the British troops were then completely withdrawn, and Armenian occupation
commenced. Hence all the trouble; for the Armenians at once commenced the wholesale robbery and persecution of the Muslem population on the
pretext that it was necessary forcibly to deprive them of their arms. In the portion of the province which lies in the plains they were able to carry out their purpose, and the manner in which this was done will
be referred to in due course."
Anonymous
Oh yes, and I totally forgot about this one:
Source: "Men Are Like That" by Leonard Ramsden Hartill. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1926, 305 pages.
(Memoirs of an Armenian officer who participated in the genocide of 2.5
million Muslim people)
_Foreword:_
"For example, we were camped one night in a half-ruined Tartar mosque, the most habitable building of a destroyed village, near the border of Persia and Russian Armenia. During the course of evening I asked Ohanus if he could tell me anything of the history of the village and the cause of its destruction. In his matter of fact way he replied, Yes, I assisted in its sack and destruction, and witnessed the slaying of those whose bones you saw today scattered among its ruins."
p. 15 (second paragraph)
"The Tartars [Azerbaijanis] were, for the most part, poor. Some of them lived in villages and cultivated small farms; many of them continued in the way of life of their nomadic forefathers. They drove their flocks and herds from valley to valley, from plain to mountain, and from mountain to plain, following the pasturage as it changed with the seasons. They ranged from the salt desert shores of the Caspian Sea far into the mighty Caucasus Mountains. Even the village Tartars are a primitive people, only semicivilized.
I can see now that we Armenians frankly despised the Tartars, and, while holding a disproportionate share of the wealth of the country, regarded and treated them as inferiors."
p. 20 (second paragraph)
"Our men armed themselves, gathered together and advanced on the Tartar section of the village. There were no lights in the houses and the doors were barred, for the Tartars suspected what as to happen and were in great fear. Our men hammered on the doors, but got no response; whereupon they smashed in the doors and began a carnage that continued until the last Tartar was slain. Throughout the hideous night, I cowered at home in terror, unable to shut my ears to the piercing screams of the helpless victims and the loud shouts of our men. By morning the work was finished."
p. 202 (first and second paragraphs).
"Some of the Tartars escaped of course. They found refuge in the mountains or succeeded in crossing the border into Turkey. The rest were killed. And so it is that the whole length of the borderland of Russian Armenia from Nakhitchevan to Akhalkalaki from the hot plains of Ararat to the cold mountain plateau of the North were dotted with mute mournful ruins of Tartar villages. They are quiet now, those villages, except for howling of wolves and jackals that visit them to paw over the scattered bones of the dead."
p. 218 (first and second paragraphs)
"We Armenians did not spare the Muslims. If persisted in, the slaughtering of Tartars, the looting, and the rape and massacre of the helpless become commonplace actions expected and accepted as a matter of course.
I have been on the scenes of massacres where the dead lay on the ground, in numbers, like the fallen leaves in a forest. Muslims had been as helpless and as defenseless as sheep. They had not died as soldiers die in the heat of battle, fired with ardor and courage, with weapons in their hands, and exchanging blow for blow. They had died as the helpless must, with their hearts and brains bursting with horror worse than death itself."
Anonymous
I bet after this posting, Armenian genocide deniers will pop-up like mushrooms after a rain:
The Khojaly Massacre was described by Human Rights Watch as "the largest massacre to date in the conflict" over Nagorno-Karabakh.[14] Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, stated in their report that the mass killing of civilians in Khojaly could not be justified under any circumstances and that actions of Armenian militants were in gross violation of a number of basic international human rights conventions.[15] Estimating the number of the civilians killed in the massacre, Human Rights Watch stated that "there are no exact figures for the number of Azeri civilians killed because Karabakh Armenian forces gained control of the area after the massacre". A 1993 report by Human Rights Watch put the number of deaths at least 161 [16], although later reports state the number of deaths as at least 200. According to Human Rights Watch, "while it is widely accepted that 200 Azeris were murdered, as many as 500-1,000 may have died". [17]
In Written Declaration No. 324, members of the PACE from Albania, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the United Kingdom, along with individual members from Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Macedonia and Norway stated that "On 26 February 1992, Armenians massacred the whole population of Khodjaly and fully destroyed the city", and called on the Assembly to recognize the massacre in Khojaly as part of "genocide perpetrated by Armenians against the Azerbaijani population". [18]
NameThe massacre is also referred to as the Khojaly Genocide and the Khojaly Tragedy by Azerbaijani people and by the government of Azerbaijan. [19]. Armenian government sources use the terms the Battle of Khojaly or the Khojaly event. Western governments and the western media refer to it as the Khojaly Massacre.
Anonymous
If you don't call this Genocide, then you are flat-out hypocrats:
Some Armenian sources admitted the guilt of the Armenian side. According to Markar Melkonian, the brother of the Armenian military leader Monte Melkonian, "Khojaly had been a strategic goal, but it had also been an act of revenge." The date of the massacre in Khojaly had a special significance: it was the run-up to the fourth anniversary of the anti-Armenian pogrom in the city of Sumgait which was the Sumgait Massacre. Melkonian particularly mentions the role of the fighters of two Armenian military detachments called the Arabo and Aramo, who stabbed to death many Azeri civilians.
According to Serge Sarkisian, long-time Defense Minister and Chairman of Security Council of Armenia, “before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype].
Alamity
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand what happened to the Armenians at the hands of the Turks is GENOCIDE !!! Period!
I also have an observation: The fact that your writing didn't take long to awaken the deniers out of their mildewed, subterranean holes is pathetically interesting; These roaches crawl out of the bowels of the earth in an effort to block the blinding light of the truth that you writing has so wonderfully shined for the civilized world to see; These nefarious forces hiding behind their "anonymous mask" have already posted ad nauseam, the same cut-and-paste, regurgitated, revisionist gobbledygook propaganda...You can't help but feel sorry for them.
Phantom
I was just reading the transcripts of the trial. Tehlirian was sent on one of the death marches with his mother, brothers and sister in 1915. On the day that the march began, his convoy was attacked and one of his sisters was abducted while his mother was screaming that may she go blind. During the commotion, he was knocked unconscience by someone. When he came to, his brother's dead body was on top of him, and his mother's dead body was nearby with her face in the ground. It was night time, and the convoy was gone, but there were dead bodies everywhere. He never found the bodies of his other brothers and sisters, and he never found them ever again. He was 18 at the time. His father was also killed during the Genocide. He was the only survivor from his immediate family. He frequently sufferend nervous breakdowns during his life before the trial. Several eyewitnesses testified that they had personally witnessed him passing out in public and having seizures with his mouth foaming.
If I were in Tehlirian's shoes and the murdered of not just my family but my people was living freely and enjoying the fruits of German culture while my brothers and sisters corpses were rotting in open graves in Anatolia, I would wish to have the courage he had to do what he did. Let's keep in mind that there were no laws under which Talaat could have been convicted and sentenced at the time, and Tehlirian did not have the luxury of turning Talaat into the authorities. Given that situation, I think Tehlirian did the courageous thing by ridding the world of a dangerous mass murderer.
Phantom
To the mental giant who tries to equate Tehlirian with Safarov (did I not call this one correctly?), Tehlirian killed a mass murderer who was responsible for killing over a million innocent civilians (and that doesn't even include the Assyrians and Greeks). Safarov chopped off the head of an innocent man who had never hurt anyone in his life and was a child during the Karabagh war.
Anonymous
Yes, I knew that Armenian mass murder and Genocide deniers will pop-up like a fungi. And here they are. Typical deniers' propaganda: "Death of my people is bad but death of your people is a nessecaty". Typical racism and brainwashed mentality.
When Armenian fascists have nothing to say and they are pinned against the wall with independent factual documents (even with facts from their own fellow Armenians), they start to cry out baseless accusations, like: "it's a lie! it's a propaganda! it's not true! but our armenian lives are more important!". If you can prove that it's a lie then do it, otherwise shut it because you are wasting Internet space of the respected site. Typical Armenian nationalists' behaviour in such cases is to limit the freedom of speach of an opposite party. You are seriously scared, aren't you :) Don't worry, this is only a beginning. The truth will prevail.
Anonymous
Source: "Men Are Like That" by Leonard Ramsden Hartill. The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, Indianapolis (1926). (305 pages).
(Memoirs of an Armenian officer who participated in the genocide of 2.5
million Muslim people)
>``As the Turks had solved the Armenian problem in Turkey by slaying
>or driving the Armenians out of the country, so we now proceeded
>to solve the Tartar problem in Armenia. We closed the roads and
>mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the Tartars,
>and then proceeded in the work of extermination.''
> Ohanus Appressian, from L. R. Hartill, ``Men Are Like That,''
> The Bobbs-Merrill Company, London, 1928. P. 202.
You have set up straw horses and knocked them down. I'm not impressed.
Let us ask Armenian scholars - shall we?
Source: K. S. Papazian, "Patriotism Perverted," Baikar Press, Boston, 1934.
pp. 17-18.
"It seems that terrorism against their own co-nationals has been a prominent
part of the revolutionary activities of the Dashnag leaders of the Caucasus.
Organized to fight the Turks, these chieftains have been more successful
in their fight against their Armenian opponents in Turkey, and the Caucasus,
very often defenseless and innocent."
p. 25.
"We were defeated".
p. 38.
"The fact remains, however, that the leaders of the Turkish Armenian section
of the Dashnagtzoutune did not carry out their promise of loyalty to the
Turkish cause when the Turks entered the war...and a call was sent for
Armenian volunteers to fight the Turks on the Caucasian front."
p. 38.
"Thousands of Armenians from all over the world, flocked to the standards of
such famous fighters as Antranik, Kery, Dro, etc. The Armenian volunteer
regiments rendered valuable service to the Russian Army in the years of
1914-15-16."
By the way, here is the entire paragraph.
"We closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as
ways of escape for the Tartars and then proceeded in the work
of extermination. Our troops surrounded village after village.
Little resistance was offered. Our artillery knocked the huts
into heaps of stone and dust and when the villages became untenable
and inhabitants fled from them into fields, bullets and bayonets
completed the work. Some of the Tartars escaped of course. They
found refuge in the mountains or succeeded in crossing the border
into Turkey. The rest were killed. And so it is that the whole
length of the borderland of Russian Armenia from Nakhitchevan to
Akhalkalaki from the hot plains of Ararat to the cold mountain
plateau of the North were dotted with mute mournful ruins of
Tartar villages. They are quiet now, those villages, except for
howling of wolves and jackals that visit them to paw over the
scattered bones of the dead."
Ohanus Appressian
"Men Are Like That"
p. 202.
Anonymous
_The Jewish Times_ June 21, 1990_An appropriate analogy with the Jewish Holocaust might be the systematic extermination of the entire Muslim population of the independent republic of Armenia which consisted of at least 30-40 percent of the population of that republic. The memoirs of an Armenian army officer who participated in and eye-witnessed these atrocities was published in the U.S. in 1926 with the title 'Men Are Like That.' Other references abound._A. Lalayan, _Revolutsionniy Vostok (Revolutionary East)_ No: 2-3, Moscow, 1936. -One of the architects of the Armenian genocide of 2.5 million Muslim people_ _I killed Muslims by every means possible. Yet it is sometimes a pity to waste bullets for this. The best way is to gather all of these dogs and throw them into wells and then fill the wells with big and heavy stones, as I did. I gathered all of the women, men and children, threw big stones down on top of them. They must never live on this earth._
Anonymous
Like US President Mr. Bush said it's part of Armenian History.
And here is the part of Turkish History that armenians cannot deny:
"We have never denied the Armenian crime of genocide inflicted upon 2.5 million Muslim people between 1914 and 1920."
Agop Zahoryan, 'Voices of Agonies', London; Reprint 1954, p. 91.
"I killed Muslims by every means possible. Yet it is sometimes a pity to waste bullets for this. The best way is to gather all of these dogs and throw them into wells and then fill the wells with big and heavy stones. as I did. I gathered all of the women, men and children, threw big stones down on top of them. They must never live on this earth."
A. Lalayan, Revolutsionniy Vostok (Revolutionary East) No: 2-3, Moscow, 1936. Quoted from Richard Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, Berkeley, 1967, p. 41-42.
"I am informed, on good authority, that Russia is already commencing her usual intrigues among the Armenians of Asiatic Turkey. Russian agents are being sent into the provinces inhabited by them with the object of stirring up discontent against the rule and authority of the Porte. A Russian party is being formed in the capital amongst the Armenians, which already includes some leading and influential members of that community."
Sir Henry Layard, British Ambassador, in a July 14, 1878 message to British Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury (British Foreign Office 424/72, pages 160-161, No 211)
"In history it happened to the Muslims in Russian Armenia and Eastern Anatolia 2.5 million Muslims were killed by the Armenians in the worst possible way imaginable. It is sickening to think that the human race is capable of such actions, but there is no denying the fact that the Armenian genocide of 2.5 million Muslims happened. The Armenian General Dro, the butcher was the architect of this Armenian genocide of Muslims, 1914-1920."
Arto Derounian (as 'John Roy Carlson'), Armenian Affairs magazine Winter issue, 1949-50, page 19, footnote. (Derounian's first name was "Avedis," and "Arthur" is the name he usually used; the author's "Under Cover" was a best seller in 1944.)
"...When Turkey had not yet entered the war...Armenian volunteer groups began to be organized with great zeal and pomp in Trans Caucasia. In spite of the decision taken a few weeks before at the General Committee in Erzurum, the Dashnagtzoutune actively helped the organization of the aforementioned groups, and especially arming them, against Turkey. In the Fall of 1914, Armenian volunteer groups were formed and fought against the Turks..."
Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic, The Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, 1923. (The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Has Nothing to Do Any More, New York, Armenian Information Service, 1955, p. 5.)
" All Turkish children also should be killed as they form a danger to the Armenian nation"
Hamparsum Boyaciyan, nicknamed "Murad," a former Ottoman parliamentarian who led Armenian guerilla forces, ravaging Turkish villages behind the lines, 1914. Cited from M. Varandian, "History of the Dashnaktsutiun," p. 85.
"When we arrived at Zeve, the village couldn't be passed through because of its stench. It was as if the bones in our noses would fall off... There were bodies everywhere. We saw a weird scene on the threshold of one house: they had filled the house with Muslims and burned it, and so many people had been burnt that the fat that had oozed from under the threshold had turned back into the trench in front of the door. That is, it was as if the river of fat had risen and later receded. The fat was still fresh. The entire village had been destroyed and was in this situation. I saw this with my own eyes, and I'll never forget it. We heard that they did the same thing to the Muslims on Carpanak Island. The Armenians told me about the latter; I did not see it for myself."
Haci Osman Gemicioglu, an Armenian-Turk (having converted to Islam) who eyewitnessed the 1915 Zeve massacre; as told to Huseyin Celik, during interviews conducted in the late 1970s-early 80s.
"We closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the Turks and then proceeded in the work of extermination."
Ohanus Appressian, describing incidents in 1919; Memoirs of an Armenian officer, Men are Like That, 1926.
"Only 1,500 Turks remain in Van"
Gochnak, an Armenian newspaper published in the United States, May 24,1915 ... in a proud report documenting the slaughter of the Turkish citizenry of Van.
"Thousands of Armenians from all over the world, flocked to the standards of such famous fighters as Antranik, Kery, Dro, etc. The Armenian volunteer regiments rendered valuable service to the Russian Army in the years of
1914-15-16."
Kapriel Serope Papazian, Patriotism Perverted, Boston Baker Press, 1934, pg. 38
"Many massacres were committed by the Armenians until our army arrived in Erzurum... (after General Odesilitze left) 2,127 Muslim bodies were buried in Erzurum's center. These are entirely men. There are ax, bayonet and bullet wounds on the dead bodies. Lungs of the bodies were removed and sharp stakes were struck in the eyes. There are other bodies around the city."
Official telegram of the Third Royal Army Command, addressed to the Supreme Command, March 19, 1918; ATASE Archive of General Staff, Archive No: 4-36-71. D. 231. G.2. K. 2820. Dos.A-69, Fih.3.
"This three-day massacre by Armenians is recorded in history as the 'March Events' and thousands of Muslims, old people, women and children lost their lives."
F. Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia (New York, 1951), p. 69. (This excerpt refers not to Armenian atrocities against Ottoman Turks, but to "Tartar" Turks, when Armenia attacked Azerbaijan in 1918. Regarding this period of March 30 to April 1 1918, Vladimir Lenin said that commissar S. Shaumyan, the chief architect of the massacres throughout Azerbaijan,turned Baku into an Armenian operated henhouse [slaughterhouse]. According to Justin McCarthy's "Death and Exile"
"It is in our blood to hate the Turks. However, we hate Bulgarians and Greeks also. The xxxs like Turks, but they hate Arabs. The Arabs, in their turn, are not in favour with the Turks. And the level of hatred is rising."
Narek Mesropian, Golos Armenii, a Russian-language newspaper in Armenia, in an August 5, 1997 article reflecting the tension between the Armenian and xxxish communities.
"The Armenians did exterminate the entire Muslim population of Russian Armenia as Muslims were considered inferior to the Armenians by the prominent leaders of the Dashnaks."
Mikael Kaprilian, Armenian revolutionary leader, in Yerevan, 1919.
"Since all the Moslems capable of bearing arms were in the
Muslim Army, it was easy to organize a terrible massacre by
the Armenians against defenseless people, because the Armenians were not only attacking the sides and rear of the Eastern Army paralyzed at the front by the Russians, but were attacking the Moslem folk in the region as well."
G. Bronsart, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, July 24, 1921
"...In the early part of 1915, therefore, every Turkish city contained thousands of Armenians who had been trained as soldiers and who were supplied with rifles, pistols, and other weapons of defense. The operations at Van once more disclosed that these men could use their weapons to good advantage..."
Henry Morganthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York (1918), page 301
"The aim of the Armenian revolutionaries is to stir disturbances, to get the Ottomans to react to violence, and thus get the foreign powers to intervene."
Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador in Istanbul, 28 March 1894 (British Blue Book, Nr.6 1894, p.57? Or p. 87).
Alamity
I rest my case! I really do!
As I predicted earlier, I knew this anonymous turkey will rear his ugly head, and it's not even thanksgiving yet.
This gifted Turkic anonymous, has a diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of ideas... He just cuts and pastes, the same crap, over and over again on every Jewcy forum that debate "Armenian Genocide" issues.
Do yourself a favor and go gobbling back to your cramped coop if you've got nothing intelligent to say.
Anoosh
You said it Alamity. I can't even comprehend half of what he is trying to say. His sources are rubbish and my eyes get strained trying to read his babble. Why is it that there can not be a single post anywhere on the internet about the Armenian Genocide that is not followed by a stream of Turkish gobledegook? I miss the days when I could come to Jewcy for some insightful commentary on the Armenian Genocide by our Jewish friends.
Anonymous
Ah, denialist best strategy is personal insults. I understand, this is what you do best. Actually that's the only thing you can do. That and B.S. that is filled in your brainless head. When there is nothing to say, where there are no counter arguments, idiots always resort to meaningless blah-blah insults.
Anoosh, you miss the days when you were able to propogate your lies without a counter argument from the other side? Off course you do. This was so much easier to brainwash uneducated in this subject people with your history falsification, forgery and portray yourself as a victim of all misfortunes of the world. It was so easy to cover up and just not speak of Armenian attrocities back then. What a joyful times!
Off course you would like to silence everyone who has something to say that opposes your view. This is how you get massacres in Armenian parliament, freedom of speech violations and Armenian terrorist organizations who blow up anyone who does not support their "Armenian Cause" (even their own liberal-minded Armenians). Why won't you go further and state your true feelings and wishes - a place with no Turks. A perfect place for you, isn't it? You've achieved it in Armenia and on 20% of occupied Azerbaijani territories and now you are trying so hard to apply the same ethnic cleansing even here, in the world of Internet.
That is exactly the image of perfect world for nationalist Armenians - A world of dictatorship, human rights and freedom of speech violations against everyone who disagrees with you. Oh, and I forgot one more thing - Armeniazation of the entire planet and Greater Armenia from Ocean to Ocean. Armenian globe. Perfect Armenian Fascism.
Anoosh
First of all, if you read my posts, you will see that I never make personal insults. My comments are limited to your comments and resources, NOT the poster. I will compare that to your post above where you call ME personally an "idiot", "brainless" and a "facist" among other things. I would appreciate it if you would limit your comments to the posts and not the person (if you are capable of such behavior.)
With respect to your supposition that I wish that the world was free of Turks, I must inform you that you are 100% wrong. I have said it before and I will say it again: I do not hate all Turks. In 1915, there were some good, decent, moral Turks. Many of the survivors of the Genocide survived because they were rescued by their Turkish neighbors. It was a crime punishable by death to aid an Armenian, yet there were those good Turks who did so anyway. Before the Genocide, some good Turks warned their Armenian neighbors what the governement had in store for them. During the genocide, others hid Armenians in their barns, their homes. Do you think that the Armenians don't know this?
I am the grandchild of four survivors of the Armenian Genocide (perhaps that explains my passion on the topic.) My paternal grandmother was saved by a Turk. A Turkish Hannum plucked my grandmother out of a death march across Der Zor and brought her to work in her home. That death march claimed the lives of my grandmother's sister and her two nieces. My great grandparents on my dad's side had already been executed by the Ottoman officials. This Turkish woman saved my grandmother's life.
Armenians know that there were Turks who were good. Where have all of those good Turks gone? Every time you post your comments on the internet, you do two things. First, you show your continued hatred toward the Armenians. Its just as bad now as it was in 1915. Secondly and more importantly, you dishonor the memory of those survivors who your own ancestors helped save. You can't even speak openly in your country about the heroism of your ancestors without facing imprisonment.
I would like to thank the good Turks who helped save my grandmother. I would like to embrace our shared history. But, in order for me to do so, you must first admit the truth. If you don't, not only do you deny the parts of your history that you do not care to face, you also deny the parts of your history that are honorable and decent. Let me thank you. Let me embrace you for saving my grandmother's life. I don't hate you. Don't hate me for simply telling my grandparents' stories.
Anonymous
First of all, Anoosh, the insults from me were not addressed to you but to Alamity, who insulted me first. It was a response directed to him and people like him, not you.
Second, just like your grandparents became victims of events of 1915, my grandparents became victims of 1918. They faced massacre by Armenians in Nakhchivan and had to flee with their children to Baku on foot. So, when you post here, you disrespect and play down the importance of lives of all innocent civilian Azeris and Turks who were slaughtered by Armenian nationalists.
Third, I do not hate all Armenians. It is impossible just because there are too many Armenian relatives in my family. Two out of three of my aunts are Armenian and my favorite cousin with whom we are so close is half Armenian. But they all lived in Baku during the events and they do not deny the terrible things that Armenian nationalists did to Azeri civilians and Azerbaijan as a whole. I am close to them, becuase as all logical people, they recognize that Armenia currently illigally occupies 20% of Azerbaijani territory and they wish that Dashnags never existed, so they could bring back the times when we all lived in Azerbaijan together in peace and prosperity.
You say it is impossible to say anything about Armenian "genocide" in Turkey in fear of being prosecuted. Now tell me, what about Armenia? You think Armenians can freely speak of Dashnag attrocities against Turks and Azeris in Armenia? And why is it that there so many Armenians still live and come to live to Turkey, how come that Armenians have their churches, communities, Armenian newspapers, religious organizations in Turkey but not a single Turk today can be found in the whole Armenia? Can you explain this to me? In the beginning of the century, only Yerevan was 70% Turkish and Azeri. In 1970s Armenia had over 2 million of Azeri population. What happened to the Azeri, Kurdish and Jewish population of Karabakh and adjacent Armenian-occupied territories? Where are all non-Armenians that used to live there now?
And finally, Anoosh, I've said it numerous times before and I'll say it again. I'm not Turkish and never even been to Turkey.
Anoosh, if you want to talk about a certain subject, lets try not to be biased and talk about both sides of the story. If you don't know about victims of the other side, then at least don't try to censor members of the opposite side.
I wish you all the best and I feel really sad for the loss of innocent lives of your grandparents and for the loss of every innocent life of every Armenian. And I hope you feel the same about innocent civilian Turks and Azeris.
Vrezh
It is obvious that you are posting clippings from most recent Azeri/Turkish slanted propaganda here. That is probably due to your education in a fabricated history taught in Azerbaijan today, seems like they are real good at adopting Turkey's format of falsehood.
There were never 2 million Azeris in Armenia in the 70s. Yerevan was only 17% Muslim in 1905, where as Baku was predominantly Armenian at the time. You claim 2.5 million muslims were killed by the Dashnaks within Russian Army. Do you know how many people and how long it would take to directly kill 2.5 million people? Do some simple calculations, you will know that those numbers do not make sense.
By posting unrelated facts to this article you are just showing desperation and extreme prejudice.
Anonymous
Yes, Armenian attrocities of Azeri and Turks are always "unrelated".
And here are the FACTS from Wiki Encyclopedia, regarding Azeri population in Armenia thoughout the history:
According to the Armenian-American historian George Bournoutian, "in the first quarter of the 19th century the Khanate of Erevan included most of Eastern Armenia and covered an area of approximately 7,000 square miles. The land was mountainous and dry, the population of about 100,000 was roughly 80 percent Muslim (Persian, Azeri, Kurdish) and 20 percent Christian (Armenian)".[4] According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, by the beginning of the 20th century a significant population of Azerbaijanis lived in Russian Armenia. They numbered about 300,000 persons or 37.5% in Russia's Erivan Governorate (roughly corresponding to most of present-day central Armenia, the Iğdır Province of Turkey, and Azerbaijan's Nakhichevan exclave).[5] Most lived in rural areas and were engaged in farming and carpet-weaving. They formed the majority in 4 of the governorate's 7 districts, including the city of Erivan (Yerevan) itself where they constituted 49% of the population (compared to 48% constituted by Armenians).[6] At the time, Eastern Armenian cultural life was centered more around the holy city of Echmiadzin, seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church.[7] Historian Luigi Villari reported that in 1905, Azeris in Yerevan were generally wealthier than the Armenians living the city.[8]
For Azeris of Armenia, the 20th century was the period of marginalization, discrimination, mass and often forcible migrations[9] resulting in significant changes in the country's ethnic composition, even though they have managed to stay its largest ethnic minority until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In 1905–1907 Erivan Governorate became an arena of clashes between Armenians and Azeris believed to have been instigated by the Russian government in order to draw public attention away from the Russian Revolution of 1905.[10] Tensions rose again after both Armenia and Azerbaijan became briefly independent from the Russian Empire in 1918. Both quarreled over where their common borders lay.[7] Warfare coupled with the influx of Armenian refugees resulted in widespread massacres of Muslims in Armenia[11][12][13][14] causing virtually all of them to flee to Azerbaijan.[9] Relatively few returned, as according to the 1926 All-Soviet population census of there were only 78,228 Azeris living in Armenia.[15] By 1939, however, the numbers increased to 131,000.[16]
In 1948–1951, with the Council of Ministers of the USSR's adoption of the resolution entitled "Planned measures for the resettlement of collective farm workers and other Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR to the Kura-Arax lowlands", the growing Azeri community became partly subject to "voluntary resettlement" (classified by Azerbaijani sources as in fact deportation[17]) into central Azerbaijan[18] to make way for incoming Armenian immigrants from the Armenian diaspora. Some 100,000 Azeris left Armenia within those three years[15] bringing the number of those in Armenia further down to 107,748 in 1959.[19] By 1979, Azeris numbering 160,841 were constituting 6.5% of Armenia's population.[20]
Present day:
It is impossible to determine the exact population numbers for Azeris in Armenia at the time of the conflict's escalation, since during the 1989 census forced Azeri migration from Armenia was already in progress. UNHCR's estimate is 200,000 persons.[2] Civil unrest in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1987 led to Azeris' being often harassed and forced to leave Armenia.[21] On 25 January 1988 the first wave of Azeri refugees from Armenia settled in the city of Sumgait.[21][22] Another major wave occurred in November 1988[22] as Azeris were either expelled by the local authorities or fled fearing for their lives.[2] This ensured the total Azeri emigration by 1991[23] and them settling primarily in Azerbaijan and Russia.
Hranoush Kharatyan, Head of Department on National Minorities and Religion Matters of Armenia, has made the following statement in February 2007:
“ Yes, ethnic Azerbaijanis are living in Armenia. I know many of them but I can't give numbers. Armenia has signed a UN convention according to which the states take an obligation not to publish statistical data related to groups under threat or who consider themselves to be under threat if these groups are not numerous and might face problems. During the census, a number of people described their ethnicity as Azerbaijani. I know some Azerbaijanis who came here with their wives or husbands. Some prefer not to speak out about their ethnic affiliation; others take it more easily. We spoke with some known Azerbaijanis residing in Armenia but they haven't manifested a will to form an ethnic community yet.[24]
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Anonymous
By trying to censor Azeris and Turks to speak of their dead, you show your true nature racist face to the rest of the world. These massacres occurred at the same time in the beginning of the century and they were committed by Armenian nationalists - the involved party. That makes it very much relevant, because it just proves the point that no genocide took place but it was a rather a war, in which both parties committed attrocities against each other.
You have a complete disregard and disrespect to the loss of innocent Turkish and Azeri lives. For racist people like you, it is: "A good Turk is a dead Turk". Trust me, your denialist strategy is breaking down and that is why you are now so hysterical.
I provided you with facts in my previous post and all you can do is throw around groundless and childish denialist defense phrases, such as: "it's not true" or "it's a Turkish propaganda". If you can prove that this is wrong, support your argument with facts, otherwise don't waste anyone's time and don't polute this respected site with empty phrases.
Anonymous
S/he is on a roll again! wow!
Desperation is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end the faster it spins.
Keep spinning... Go ahead, pollute this site too with your cut-&-paste ramblings.
Anonymous
As I've predicted, you are just gonna blab out some denialist nonsense, overlooking every fact presented to you. Off course, when you are full of B.S. and lies, you have nothing to present as an educated argument in a civilized manner. Personal insults steam from one's week position and insecurity.
Anonymous
well, if anyone is truly interested in the hidden story behind this topic...i suggest they do a wikipedia search on 'talaat pasha'. they will find that talaat, like most of the CUP, were, in fact, donmeh, which suggests that armenian anger against 'the turks' might be misplaced. true turks and the turkish nation are being blamed for the murderous actions, manipulations and schemes of the few powerful criminals who mastermined and later profited from the genocide. as melson points out, the genocide - like the holocaust - was an internal war of theft - though it preceded the holocaust by 30 years and was commited against a native population that represented fully 25% of anatolia. to ignore this underlying fact is like ignoring the five ton elephant in the room. when will people wake up?
Anoosh
Ano 10:08, You need to come up with a better source than "Wikipedia". As I am sure you know, Wikipedia is not a true enclycopedia and is not a valid resource for even the most basic scholar. I wouldn't even let my 8 year old rely upon it as a resource for a class project.
Why? Wikipedia contains content that is written and edited by anyone with access to the internet. Anyone can write whatever they want and anyone can edit these entries.
Wikipedia itself admits that its "articles may contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content or vandalism." www.wikipedia.com. The Founder of Wikipedia has admitted to serious quality problems. (See www.theRegister.ct.uk/2005/10/18/wikipedia-quality-problem/.
Moreover, the administrators of Wikipedia have been forced to remove Azeri posts about Nagorno-Karabakh because of their false and political content.
I suggest that you use honest and reliable resources before you spread your misinformation around on the web.
Anonymous
Anoosh, how come you avoided answering the following post:
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I wish you all the best and I feel really sad for the loss of innocent lives of your grandparents and for the loss of every innocent life of every Armenian. And I hope you feel the same about innocent civilian Turks and Azeris.